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Editorial

Do teen driving limits go too far?

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Graduated driver’s licenses, where teens earn more driving privileges as they age and gain experience behind the wheel, have been adopted by all 50 states in recent years .

Statistics back up those laws: Easing kids into driving and helping them to build skill and maturity makes for safer roads.

But Ohio lawmakers have made proposals that push the limits of what is reasonable.

These include new licensing requirements for people who, in the eyes of the law, are adults.

As it stands, to get a license at age 16 or 17, the applicant must have completed a formal driver’s education course, with 24 hours of classroom instruction and eight hours of in-car training with a certified instructor.

An amendment to House Bill 204, introduced during a Tuesday committee hearing, would require that 18-, 19- and 20-year-olds also take that formal driver’s education course.

By that age, some young people are out on their own. They might be supporting themselves; they might even be supporting families. Requiring them to fork over several hundred dollars for a driver’s education course could be a hardship.

More defensible are stricter rules governing 16- and 17-year-old drivers.

Smart proposals include:

• Everyone riding with a young driver would be required by law to wear a seat belt. Under current law, only children and front-seat occupants are required to be belted.

• Any 16- or 17-year-old who is ticketed for a moving violation would have to be accompanied by a parent or guardian while driving for six months afterward.

• Nonfamily members younger than 21 would be prohibited from riding with anyone who has had his license for less than a year.

But HB 204 also would ban young drivers from being on the road between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. unless a parent or guardian is present.

Currently, 16-year-old drivers must be in by midnight; 17-year-olds by 1 a.m.

There would be exceptions for school and work, but that just means a young driver pulled over by police after 10 p.m. must have in his “immediate possession,” according to the Legislative Service Commission, “written documentation from the (driver’s) employer” that he is supposed to be on the road at that time.

The bill also would allow teen drivers to be on the road during prohibited hours if they are traveling to or from a school-sponsored event or because of an emergency. But this would appear to bar them from traveling to non-school activities such as an evening movie, a night-time family gathering and evening church activities.

Parents are going to ferry high-school students to all of these events and activities? Not likely.

The state probably would be forcing many youngsters into a situation where they break the law and hope to avoid detection.

Obviously, if the state keeps all teen drivers off the road, none are going to crash. But the desire for safety has to be tempered by practicality.